


Soak in the Kaleidoscope

by knightsgold (tamxiety)



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Blue Crush AU, F/F, Slow Burn, surfer!alex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-01 06:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8612221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamxiety/pseuds/knightsgold
Summary: Alex Danvers was once a rising star in the world of surfing. Now, three years later, she is working at a hotel, helping her sister through college, and has sworn off professional surfing for good. But, a woman named Maggie Sawyer might be able to change her mind.The Blue Crush (2002) AU





	1. Welcome to Hawaii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I don't know if you've seen Blue Crush (2002), so I will start with a disclaimer that this movie is DUMB. It is the most early-2000s, ridiculous, 'dude, no way, brah' movie on the face of the Earth and I LOVE it.  
> Disclaimer #2: I don't own Blue Crush, so the vast majority of this plot should be credited to that movie, aside from the changes I made to make it fit with Supergirl.  
> Disclaimer #3: I did this for myself and for surfer!alex

It’s still dark out when Alex’s alarm goes off. The shrill sound drills into her temples and forces out any notion of drifting back to sleep in the calm of the early morning. Groaning as quietly as she can, she extracts herself from her twisted sheets and plants her feet on the ground. Time to go.

            Her alarm clock says that it’s 5:32am. That’s early enough for coffee in her book. Yawning the grogginess out of her body, Alex picks her way around the clothes she’d discarded on the floor the night before and peaks around the wall the separates her space from her sister’s. Kara is still asleep in a tangle of multicolored blankets, on leg splayed across the floor because they still haven’t gotten around to getting her a bedframe for her mattress. With the amount she tossed and turned it was almost easier to have her already be on the floor.

            Quietly, so as not to wake her just yet, Alex creeps around Kara and heads into the kitchen. Unlike their rooms, the kitchen is completely tidy. Alex couldn’t be bothered to make her bed, but she was a stickler about keeping the kitchen clean. There was just something therapeutic about being able to wake up and not see a stack of dirty dishes first thing in the morning.

            Shuffling, she gingerly opens the cabinets (because everything in the shack creaked) and pulls out a bag of coffee and her favorite mug. Then, she unclips the water basin from the coffee maker with practiced precision and fills it up, clipping it back in with one hand and dumping the coffee in filter with the other. Once the coffee maker is giving her its familiar, gurgling morning greeting, she leans back against the counter and yawns again.

            The shack always feels cozy in the morning. The grainy wood floors under her bare feet and occasional squeak of the mangled shutters in the wind felt like home. And that was the truth. This old, chipped, creaky, blue-painted hunk of wood with windows that had no glass in them was she and Kara’s home, right off the north coast of Oahu, Hawaii. The shack was the shack was the shack, that’s all there was to it.

            A sleepy murmur sounds from Kara’s room. Alex pulls a glass down from the cabinet and fills it with water. Minutes later, when Kara comes around the corner rubbing her eyes under her glasses, Alex passes the glass into her hand without word.

            “Thanks.” Kara mumbles. She’s wearing her bright pink pajama bottoms and an inside out t-shirt. Alex fights a smile.

            “Long night?” She asks.

            “Yeah,” Kara sighs, “I finished my paper though.”

            “Great. So does that mean you’re coming out with us this morning?”

            “Of course.” Kara smiles, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

            Alex hums at that. Behind her, the coffee maker dings. Kara takes a seat on one of the mismatched stools at the island while Alex pours herself a healthy mug. They sip in silence, listening to the hinges on the shutters and the first birdsongs of the morning.

            The coffee goes down easily and Alex reaches the bottom of the mug just as the first rays of gray light peek through the slats of the shutters. Kara swipes Alex’s empty mug from her hand and deposits both it and her own glass in the sink in two steps and uses her third step to swing herself around the corner to her room. Alex follows at a slower pace, letting the bitter-ish aftertaste of creamer-less coffee sit on her tongue for a little while before it’s washed away by her toothpaste.

            It’s important that she gets into the bathroom before Kara. Alex doesn’t require a lot of maintenance, just some minor hair care, some moisturizer on her face, and a thorough brush of her teeth. Kara, meanwhile, would need twenty minutes to get the soft curls of her hair in order.

            Alex stares at herself in the mirror with her toothbrush hanging out of her mouth. She looks tired, but that is somewhat hidden under the unshakable tan that comes with spending multiple hours in the day being hit by direct sunlight. She spits her toothpaste out.

            “Kara! You’re turn.” Alex calls as she steps out of the bathroom. She walks back to her room and scrutinizes the sprawl of clothes that stretches from her bed to her dresser. At random, she grabs a bikini top and a pair of bottoms. The top is red and the bottoms are black and they quite clearly are not from the same set, but Alex doesn’t really care, it’s way too early.

            After changing her clothes and gathering her towel, shorts, and shirt from the opposite side of her room, Alex meanders back to the kitchen, stretching out the tightness in between her shoulder blades as she goes. The water is running in the bathroom, so she has a least a few minutes until Kara is ready to go. There is one delicious looking orange left in their fruit bowl, which Alex claims quickly. She peels it on her way out the front door.

            “Kara, let’s g—“ Alex yells over her shoulder, pausing when she steps on a piece of paper lying face down on their small porch. Balancing her half-peeled orange in one hand, she leans down and picks it up, immediately frowning at the bold words printed on the bright yellow and blue flyer.

            “I’m right here, Alex—oh! What’s that?” Kara appears in the same moment. Alex turns and hands her the paper wordlessly.

            “The Pipe Masters surf competition! Wow, Alex, who could have put this here?” Kara makes a show of looking around curiously, even going as far as to lift up on of the palm fronds that hangs onto their porch. Alex rolls her eyes and steps off the porch.

            “You put this here, Kara.” She sighs.

            “What! Me? No, never, I wouldn’t—“

            “ _Kara_.” Alex singsongs, “ _You can’t lie to me_.”

            “I’m not lying!” Kara jogs around Alex, the backpack on her back bobbing with her. She does her best to look stern and it’s cute, but it also makes her blatant lie more obvious. Alex pushes around her to unlock the door of their rusty, gray car.

            “You put that there last night so I would see it this morning and think it was a personal invitation.”

            “No, I…um, no….”

            “I’m not surfing that competition, Kara.” Alex says. She throws her towel in the backseat and then straightens up to double check that their surfboards are tightly secured to the roof. Kara visibly deflates at her words. Her sister drags her feet as she walks around to the passenger side door.

            “I just don’t get why you’re giving up on this, Alex.” Kara says when they are both in the car. Alex ignores her to focus on backing out of their sandy driveway. The sun is halfway over the horizon and it makes the rearview mirror difficult to see out of.

            “I’m not giving up.”

            “Then why not try the competition? Alex, you were so good!”

            “That was three years ago.”

            “And you’ve surfed nearly every day since then!” Kara says, throwing her hands up.

            “You remembered to put your contacts in right?”

            “Yes, Alex, I am not wearing glasses, as you can see. Stop changing the subject!”

            “The subject is dead, leave it be.” Alex grumbles. They are on the main road, driving parallel to the high, brilliant green hills on one side and the swooping dip of the land that lead out into the ocean on the other. The water and the trees were all burning in bright yellows and oranges as the sun crept higher above the waterline. Most days, Alex would be appreciating the view and basking in the fresh sunlight. Today, with Kara pushing Pipe Masters, she stares straight at the faded yellow lines marking the road, her frustration growing.

            “I believe you could do it.” Kara says quietly.

            “I can’t. I have work, you have school. End of story.”

            There isn’t much conversation for the rest of the ride. Kara doesn’t mention Pipe Masters again, which Alex is thankful for. They pull up to the beach just as the last edge of the sun edges over the horizon. Alex throws the car in park and hurries out of the car, eager to be on the water rather than stuck in the car with Kara’s unspoken disappointment.

She’s setting to work unhitching the boards when another car, blaring music at _this_ hour in the morning, pulls up in the space behind her.

“Morning, Danvers Senior.”

“Morning, Lucy.” Alex says without turning to see who it is. The music dies down and car door slams, ending with Lucy’s hand clapping Alex on the arm. Her friend is all decked out in a bright pink suit, towel around her neck

“Ready to ride?” Lucy grins. Alex smiles back and nods. Lucy leaves her to circle around the car and tap on Kara’s window.

“Ready to ride, Danvers Junior?”

“I’m only two years younger than her, Lucy.” Kara huffs, pushing Lucy out of the way so she can get out of the car fully. “And I’m bigger.”

“Experience trumps muscle, even though your muscles are nice.” Lucy laughs.

“Can you two get it together and help me untie the boards?” Alex says. “I want to get some good waves in before we drop Kara off.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Lucy salutes with all the seriousness of an army brat. Between the three of them, they get the boards off the roof of the car in record time. Lucy’s board comes down equally as easily.

“Last one in the water ties the boards back up!” Lucy shouts, charging towards the beach. Kara takes off after her, the both of them kicking up small explosions of sand. Alex, in defiance of having so much energy this early in the morning, takes her time. She likes to take in the beach this early in the morning anyway. It’s peaceful. The surface of the sand is undisturbed, the palms lean lazily forward like they too just woke up, and the waves crash in a steady rhythm. Aside from the raucous laughter coming from Kara and Lucy as they hit the water, it could be a painting. 

            Alex kicks off her shoes and tosses them into the car. Rather than charge down the beach, she starts her path at a leisurely pace. Today, she’s more interested in soaking up the entire experience of an early morning surf than launching herself headfirst into the waves, even though they do this at least five days a week. It’s nice to feel the sand under her toes before the midday sun heats it up to uncomfortable temperatures.

            Kara and Lucy are both already out by the sandbar when Alex sets down her board and slides her surf wax out of her back pocket. Methodically, she peels off her shirt and shorts and then kneels in the sand, dragging the wax up and down the length of the board to prevent herself from slipping once she’s riding. It’s a menial task, but it is important. Plus, it gives her time to breath in the tang of salt in the air and focus her mindset. Up, down. Up, down. Breathe in, breathe out.

            Once the board is good and waxed, Alex stands up and hefts it under her armpit, dropping the surf wax onto the pile of her things in the sand. She heads towards the water at a nice jog, feeling her heart rate accelerate with every step. Kara and Lucy are sitting on their boards and they cheer when they see her coming. Alex hits the water just as a wave is breaking on the shore, so the spray and foam splash up to greet her like with the ocean’s version of a kiss goodmorning.

            Eventually, as she sloshes out further and dodges the wave breaks hitting her chest, it becomes too hard to run, so Alex lays out her board and slides herself on top. When she had first started surfing, the prospect of paddling out into the deep water had been daunting to a kid with short arms and a board that was taller than her. But, back then her father had been there to help her over the breaks and guide her into deeper waters. Jeremiah Danvers had been a phenomenal surfer, a three-time winner of Pipe Masters and beloved by locals and mainlanders alike. When he passed when Alex and Kara younger, the whole island had mourned.

            Alex is so lost in her thoughts; she almost lets a wave break right on her head. To avoid it, she duck dives, pushing the nose of the board under the water with her arms and uses her foot to bring the tail down behind her. Under the surface, the world becomes an eerie half-quiet broken only by the muted sound of the current roaring past her ears. Alex opens her eyes to watch the underside of the wave pass over her in a frothy display as she lets her board carry her back to the surface. When she breaks through, gasping in a breath, she finds herself within a few yards of Kara and Lucy.

            “Took your time getting out here, huh?” Lucy says. She’s got her legs wrapped around her board and her arms dipped in the water. Kara chuckles and flicks a few droplets at Alex.

            “You’re going third because you were the last one in.” Her sister says pointedly. “I’m first because I beat Lucy.”

            “Fair enough.” Alex nods, sitting up on her board. She tenses her muscles as a wave rolls through them, carrying them up and then back down. Looking out at the incoming swells, one catches her eye. “There’s one coming in, Kara.”

            Kara follows Alex’s gaze to the particular swell. She grins and Alex feels some of the frustration she had felt with her earlier in the day fall away. The sunlight and the increasing warmth of the water and Kara’s smile are nice reminders of why Alex gets up in the morning.

            “Okay, yeah, I got it.” Kara says, flattening herself against her board. Lucy starts paddling out of Kara’s way and Alex follows her, swimming against the direction of the incoming waves so that they don’t get pushed too far down the beach. After they are far enough away, Alex sits up and guides her board around so that she can watch.

            Kara positions herself at a diagonal just as the swell comes in. Her strong arms propel her along the face of the wave. She gets to the top just as it thins out and breaks. Pushing herself from her stomach, to her knees, and then to her feet in one fluid motion, Kara cuts down into the wave. Lucy whoops behind Alex. Kara doesn’t quite allow herself to fall back into the barrel, but that’s to be expected. Kara surfs for pure enjoyment and she usually doesn’t do anything too extreme, even though she has the physique and physical power to hang onto waves that would toss Alex out. Alex watches her go until she rides out of the wave and up and over the lip. Kara dunks under the water for a second and then bobs back up, throwing Alex and Lucy a thumbs up.

            “I’m next!” Lucy shouts. Alex lets her go. She’s got to spot her own wave anyway. Lucy finds a good wave relatively quickly and paddles away without another word. Alex waits. She watches Lucy ride a short but feisty run and stretches her shoulders. Her wave is coming.

            The sun is burning the skin on her cheeks, Alex knows. It glints off of the top of the water in a classic deception for anybody who doesn’t spend much time out here. Alex has received far worse sunburns from UV rays reflect off the water and hitting her face than any she has gotten on land. But, even through the glare, Alex finally spots what she’s been looking for. A nice wave.

            She starts paddling and everything else melts away; Pipe Masters, her dad, work, everything. Gone. All Alex can see is the wave coming in. Water splashes in her mouth, coating her tongue with the taste of salt, and she doesn’t notice. The swell is bulging so she has to push herself faster to get on top. The effort makes her arms burn, but it’s a welcome feeling. She has it.

            One breath, and Alex is over the lip just as the wave breaks fully. Her heart soars as she guides the nose of her board down, into the barrel. Unlike Kara, Alex lives for the barrel. It is one of nature’s most perfect creations, a small pocket of space and time that is unlike any other on earth. Over her head, the water curves, flashing aquamarine as the sun tries to shine through it. And only feet behind her, the folding parts of the barrel crash down in a deafening explosion of spray that nips at her heels. Alex sticks her hand out and drags it through the wall of water to her right. Paradise.

            Yet, even paradise must come to an end. Alex pulls out of the barrel and drives up to the lip, slashing a pretty nice (if she does say so herself) cutback before riding out of the wave, kicking out and letting herself fall into the water. She’s out of breath when she comes back up and fumbles a little bit trying to get herself back on her board.

            By the time Alex makes it back to where Kara is idly leaning back on her board, Lucy has caught another wave.

            “One and done?” Alex asks.

            “No,” Kara shakes her head, “It’s just nice to watch you surf. You’re so confident out here.”

            “And I’m not on land?”

            “No, you are. It’s just different.” Kara shrugs. Alex runs a hand through her damp hair and laughs.

            “Go catch a wave.” She says, “Or I’ll take the next good one.”

            Between the three of them, they get several satisfying runs in. The beach has started to fill up as the morning rolled on and more people are swimming out to join them. Some of them greet Alex and chat about the quality of wave while she waits for priority. Kara spends more time floating around talking to people than actually surfing. She probably wouldn’t get another wave in if Lucy wasn’t around to tell her that she couldn’t keep giving up her priority to every person who wanted to ride. And though Alex wouldn’t call any of the random mixture of people out here her ‘friends’, she can’t deny how nice is it to be part of a community like this one. Everyone knows the rules, is friendly, and respects everyone else. That is, except for the one man whose voice sounds from behind Alex and mars her otherwise excellent morning.

            “Alex Danvers!” Alex rolls her eyes as Maxwell Lord, the biggest asshole on the island, swims up next to her on his jet black board. He’s shirtless, smirking, and staring at her. Alex holds in a sigh.

            “What do you want, Max?”

            “What, I can’t greet the best female surfer on Oahu? Or, should I say, _former_ best.”

            “Is it your goal in life to be so obnoxious you chase everyone off the beach?” Alex growls.

            “Look, I just wanted to ask why you’re over here on the sandbar when a surfer of your caliber should be in the Pipeline.” Max says, pointing down the beach. Alex feels her hands clench. The Pipeline was a section of beach that was ten times more dangerous than the sandbar. Only locals and highly-skilled surfers dared take it on. Kara and Lucy had never even attempted to ride it.

            “Oh, wait.” Max put a hand over his heart and gave her a fake-sympathetic look. “That’s where you wiped out so bad you lost all ability to surf big waves.”

            “Shut the hell up, Max!” Alex grinds out, but she knows he can tell he got her. Unbidden, the memory of that day, three years ago, jumps into her mind. The way the wave had risen up and crushed her, throwing her down against the rocks hidden under the surface. Alex’s shoulder hurts at the thought. The current had buffeted her around like a ragdoll, dragging her helplessly around. She’s almost drowned.

            “Have I hit a sore spot?” Max is clearly enjoying making her uncomfortable. He had always had it out for her in particular, maybe because he had never been accepted as a ‘local’ by the community in the way Alex and Kara had. Or maybe it was because Alex had turned him down multiple times in the past when he asked her out.

            “Get out of here, Max.” Kara appears out of nowhere, frown firmly planted on her face. Lucy drifts up as well.

            “Move it, asshole.” Lucy snaps. “Go contaminate some other water.”

            “I think I’ve had this dream before.” Max sneers, eyeing Kara and Lucy. Thankfully though, he shoots Alex one last toothy smile and goes on his way. It’s not until he is at least out of earshot that Alex spins herself on her board and starts paddling back to shore. Kara calls after her, but Alex need to not be out on the water anymore. She haphazardly kicks and paddles, heedless of the whitecaps slapping her once she makes it to the shallows. Gracelessly, she stumbles out of the water with her board under her arm and doesn’t stop until she reaches her pile of clothes. She lays the board down and plunks down in the sand, ignoring the way it sticks to the back of her thighs.

            From her spot, Alex can see Kara rushing out of the water, followed by Lucy. They reach her, breathless, with concern painted across their faces.

            “Alex, are you—are you okay?” Kara gasps, using her board as a crutch. Alex can’t look her sister in the eye.

            “I’m fine.” She lies. “We just need to get you to class, is all.”

            “What?” Kara’s snorts incredulously. She beckons to Lucy, who shows her the time on her watch. “Alex, it’s only eight. I don’t have class until nine.”

            “And we have to drive you to campus.” Alex says, feeling shitty that she’s using Kara as an excuse for why she couldn’t be in the water anymore. They wouldn’t understand the real reason though, because there was a real reason why Alex wouldn’t ride Pie Masters and why Max’s words bit into her so badly. She wasn’t good enough.

Three years ago, when she had wiped out in the Pipeline, Alex had almost died. Feeling that wave punch the air out of her lungs had introduced Alex to what it felt like to be defeated. It was only by the grace of the ocean that she was spit out somewhere that she could be retrieved. Kara had cried for two whole days after they dragged Alex’s unconscious body out of the water. Alex didn’t have full use her right arm for a month and a half. Sure, she was fine now, but the feeling of being completely inadequate never quite went away, even though the physical pain did. Nothing— _nothing_ —was more humiliating than being a rising star breaking free of her father’s shadow, only to be sidelined by a near fatal wipe out. And Alex hadn’t ridden the Pipeline since.

“Come on, it’s better to be early than late.” Alex says, eager to distance herself from those memories as quickly as possible. “Plus, I have to go to work.”

“Okay.” Kara says, though it’s clear she doesn’t quite believe Alex’s words. Lucy just raises her eyebrows noncommittally. They gather their things and clear off the beach, passing all of the people arriving at a rational hour. They wave at those they know, but otherwise maintain a steady march back to the car. Kara slips back into the passenger seat as soon as she hefts her board back onto the roof of the car. Lucy mounts her board on top of her Jeep and pats Alex on the back in an attempt to be comforting. Mostly it just makes Alex feel worse.

 

 

*** 

            Alex drops Kara off at the free-standing brick archway outside the University of Hawaii, West Oahu. Kara gets out of the car and grabs her backpack from the backseat, leaving Alex with a small smile and a promise to tell her teaching assistant and friend, James, that Alex said ‘Hi’. As soon as Kara passes under the arch, Alex cranks the radio up and pulls out of the parking lot.

            “ _You like the feel I bring, you like feel I bring…_ ” Alex sings as she cruises down the road for several miles, using the wind to dry her hair. As a mental note, she reminds herself to grab some potstickers for Kara for dinner that night, as an apology for rushing off the beach the way she did.

            Alex pulls her sun visor down so she can see the turn she’s looking for. The big, transplanted palms and water foundation outside of her chosen place of employment always blocked the side entrance. Fortunately, Alex spots it and pulls into the employee lot. ‘JW MARRIOTT EMPLOYEES ONLY’ the sign in front said. Alex reluctantly fell into that group.

            She parks in a random spot and twists in her seat to grope around the back seat for her uniform shirt. It’s jammed under a stack of broken board fins that Alex has promised to fix for some of the kids in town. Alex tugs the monstrous thing out. It is a royal blue Hawaiian shirt with yellow and pink flowers printed across it and a little name tag designating her as ‘ALEX’. As is her routine, she changes her clothes in the car and hastily applies deodorant. Oh, and she puts on ‘real’ shoes, which are basically just repurposed hiking boots that she wore to work because of her boss’s ‘No Open-Toed Shoes’ rule. After she checks that she’s matched up the buttons on her shirt properly, Alex takes a deep breath. Another day at work, here she comes.

            There is no point in going inside, so Alex lets herself out of the car and starts picking her usual path through the landscaping. She works between the pool and the beach, at the Tiki Bar, so to go inside would be redundant. She and her boss, Hank, spent their days serving overpriced drinks to hotel patrons and picking up empty Corona bottle from the beach. It wasn’t the most exciting job, but Alex knew there were worse job in the world, so she didn’t complain.

            The bar comes in to sight through the high black fence that separated the pool area from the outside world. Alex uses her employee ID to swipe herself into the pool deck and hustles past the few people lounging outside. She has to push through one more gate to get to the stone section between the beach and the pool where the Tiki Bar sits.

            “Hey, Hank.” She says as she walks behind the bar. The temperature under the woven roof of the bar is significantly cooler than it is when standing in direct sunlight. She had broken a sweat on the way over and not even realized it.

            “Alex.” Hank’s greeting comes from the back room of the bar, where they keep all of the boxes of alcohol that aren’t displayed on the massive wall of liquor that stretched the width of the bar. If Alex didn’t work here, she would probably think she was in heaven.

            She and Hank work with well-oiled efficiency, moving a few cases of beer from the back refrigerator to the smaller one underneath the bar, as well as some frozen fruits and mixes. Theirs is a quiet partnership and they mainly keep the conversation on work-related topics, unless Alex had a new story about Kara, which Hank always seemed interested to hear in his own reserved way. Today wasn’t much different, especially since Alex had a lot on her mind after the events of that morning.

            As the day drags on, Alex serves drinks to the dozens of people who meander down from their hotel rooms. Some of them try to make small talk and some of them don’t. A few memorable customers were the elderly couple who sat at the corner of the bar, sipping daiquiris for the better part of two hours, the two college kids who ordered a tub of Coronas while obviously flexing at her, the little girl who had to boost herself onto a stool to ask for a lemonade, and the man who clearly hungover and ordered a whiskey even though he was on a _beach_ in _Hawaii_. Hank passes in and out from the back room and the bar, but, otherwise, nothing too interesting happens.

            Well, actually, nothing interesting happens until 3pm. At 3pm, a trio of two women and one guy walk down from the pool deck. Alex had been staring off at the ocean during a lull in business but their arrival pulls her attention back to what’s right in front of her. The first woman is pale with dark, dark hair, huge, round sunglasses over her eyes, and a sunhat drooping over her face. The guy is a bit short and has his nose absolutely coated in sunscreen. But they don’t really factor into Alex’s brain because she is caught up in staring at the second woman. She defines the word ‘gorgeous’ wearing a bikini top, jean shorts, and a navy baseball cap. Her skin is tanned and she’s got a dimpled smile that Alex can’t tear her eyes off of.

            “H-hi,” Alex stammers. “How can I help you today?”

            “One Caribbean Rum Punch, please. On tab.” The first woman says, with an aura of elegance.

            “Just a Bud Light, please.” The man raises one finger. Alex nods and reaches under the bar to grab a Bud from the fridge, as well the bottle of orange juice she needed for the Rum Punch. Nervously, she glances up at the second woman, who is reading the drink menu pensively.

            “See that umbrella over there, Winn? We should grab that one.” The first woman points to an empty set of chairs and umbrella a ways down the beach. The man nods and starts to swagger across the sand, as if he wasn’t wearing board shorts with the Millennium Falcon printed on them. Alex tips a small amount of grenadine into the Rum Punch and slides it to the first woman.

            “Thank you.” She says, before turning to the second woman. “Have you figured out want you want yet, Maggie?”

            “No, but I will in a second. Go, I’ll meet you guys over there.”

Alex feels out of breath, like she’s been underwater for an hour. She splays her hands across the bar and tries her best to look relaxed, but it’s hard when the most stunning creature she has ever seen is standing in front of her reading a drink menu and biting her thumb. And her name is _Maggie_.

“I don’t know…” Maggie eyes flick to Alex’s name tag. “What do you think is good, _Alex_?”

“I, um…” Alex gapes. God, this is _embarrassing_. She’s an adult, she should be able to speak coherently to a pretty woman! “I’m a simple girl. I like Sex on the Beach.”

“Do you now?” Maggie smirks, immediately making Alex blush.

“It’s a good drink.” Alex rushes to defend herself, cheeks flaming. “But, if that’s not your style, I would suggest a Tequila Sunrise.”

“Very beachy.”

“Well…you are on a beach.” Alex winces at how uncertain her voice sounds. Maggie smiles at her though, and Alex’s chest feels pleasantly tight.

“I guess I’ll take a Tequila Sunrise, then. I’ll have to save Sex on the Beach for later.” She’s teasing her, Alex realizes. Maggie is teasing _her_. Alex turns to grab the tequila off the shelf and half expects Maggie to poof away like some kind of fever dream, but, nope, she’s still there. It takes every scrap of calm Alex can pull together to mix the drink without spilling anything.

“So, how has your visit been?” Asking customers questions is usually an effective way to get them to come back and buy more drinks, unless, of course, you’re Alex Danvers at 3pm and you’re asking questions so that you have something to take your mind off of the pretty lady.

“We just got here, actually.”

“Oh! Well, welcome to Hawaii.”

“Thanks.” Maggie smiles. “I think I’m gonna enjoy it.”

Alex returns her smile and hands over her drink. Maggie sips it, eyes shining with amusement, and leaves with a wave. Alex, frozen in place, watches her go. Oh, she’s in trouble. Big, big trouble. In a trance, Alex leans on the bar and gazes across the beach to where Maggie is sitting down next to her friends. Her brain feels like the wavy heat mirages coming off the sand.

“Welcome to Hawaii.” She mumbles to herself, stomach fluttering like she was about to drop into the best wave of her life. Who knows? Maybe she is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of exposition to lead into this, but it's going to get GNARLY in the coming chapters, I assure you. Thank you for reading, comments are always appreciated!  
> P.S The title and the lyrics Alex sings are from Aer's song "Feel I Bring"


	2. Playing Nice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chance encounter becomes chance encounter(s).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, sorry this took a bit, finals are rearing their heads. Anyway, I hope you enjoy! Any and all mistakes are mine.

_Fire. Her lungs are on fire. There is no air to breath, no relief, no saving herself from the seizing panic gripping her brain as her chest sears. Water. There’s water, but something in Alex tells her not to let it help her, because it is not here to put the fire out. If she lets it in, she’s going to die. But it is so hard to fight the instinct to breathe in when she being dragged and twisted around by a force that is far stronger than her. In the brief flashes that Alex is coherent enough to open her eyes, she can see the strange, roiling underbelly of the waves above her, whipping her body around like a dog with a bone. Her shoulder impacts something and the last vestiges of air rush out of her mouth in a silent scream._

Alex jerks up with a gasp. She’s dripping sweat. Her sheets are all twisted around one leg and her pillows are on the floor. Shakily, she reaches up and covers her eyes with a hand, air, blessed air, rattling in her chest. Coughing away the ghost of salt water in her throat, Alex leans to check her alarm clock. It’s almost 8am.

Outside, Alex can hear an incessant whine accompanied by loud pop music. Body aching for no good reason, she rolls out of her bed, glances at the devastation that is her room, and decides that it is a problem for another time. She kicks a shirt off of her sandals, slips them on, and then heads for the door.

With the protection of the shack’s walls, the whine is inescapable. Alex circles around the back of the shack. Squatting behind it is their work and storage shed, which just so happens to be the source of the noise. The shed as an open front with a garage door rigged up to it protect their boards and other various items. It also houses the worktable that Kara is currently hunched over, dragging a sander over the raw body of an uncompleted board. Rather than try to get her sisters attention through the cacophony of noise, Alex weasels her way behind an unsuspecting Kara and cuts the power to the ancient radio she’s using to blast Honolulu 97.3’s Top 40 Hits. As soon as the music grinds to a halt, Kara’s hands freeze over the board. She spins and catches sight of Alex. Her mouth and nose are covered by a ventilated mask, but her goggled eyes light up.

“Mmmflex!” Kara mumbles through the mask.

“I can’t understand you.” Alex waves her hand around her mouth. Kara’s eyebrows jump. She reaches up and drags the mask down to her neck.

“Whoops. Sorry.”

“Did you turn my alarm off?”

“Yeah,” Kara nods, setting the sander down on the table. “My class got cancelled today, so…”

“You decided to do some extremely loud labor?”

“You know I’m a morning person.” Kara shrugs.

“What about getting some waves in?”

“Lucy called and said it’s completely flat today. Another reason to let you sleep.”

“So, all I get to do today is work…” Alex groans, but it isn’t an entirely honest sound. True, she is never overtly excited to bartender for several hours on end, but since the introduction of certain…new elements, or, should she say, new _customers_. Kara seems to pick up on the undercurrent to Alex’s tone and she narrows her eyes.

“I feel like you’re hiding something from me.”

“Me? What? I have nothing to hide from you, Kara.” Alex snorts. “Even if I tried, you can practically see through walls, so you’d figure it out eventually.”

“You’re almost as bad of a liar as me.” Kara squints at her. Alex holds up her hands and quirks her lips. She’s not hiding anything from Kara. At least, not _actively_ hiding. Casually leaving out a few details from the day before wasn’t technically a lie. Kara still doesn’t look convinced, but she has nothing to go on, so she shrugs and runs her fingers over the handle of the sander.

“When do you have to leave?”

“Ten. Hank said I could come in a bit later today.”

“Whatever am I going to do while you’re gone?” Kara sighs dramatically. Alex shoves her sister’s shoulder.

“Waste away from boredom, probably.” Alex chuckles. Kara laughs too, though there’s something keeping her from returning to her task. She shifts her weight with a pointed look at Alex.

“Look, I know you don’t really want to talk about this, but…have you thought about Pipe Masters at all?” Kara asks, brushing the side of her face awkwardly and leaving a smudge of white dust on the tip of it. It is a nervous habit Kara has had since they were kids. Sighing, Alex reaches up and brushes the dust away. She chews her lip and does her best to avoid Kara’s searching eyes.

“I don’t want to disappoint you, Kara.”

“You could never disappointment me, Alex. I have _always_ looked up to you.” Kara says, sincerity dripping from her pores. “But I’m worried that you’re disappointing _yourself_.”

“I appreciate the concern, I really do.” Alex shakes her head. “But I am not the surfer or person I was three years ago. And that’s not disappointment, it’s just reality.”

“Your reality, not mine. I believe in you, Alex. I wish you would believe in yourself.”

Alex has to laugh. She really does. She laughs until her sides hurt and there is a sheen of tears in her eyes, because Kara is too good for her own good. Kara, who watches Alex with blatant confusion. She doesn’t understand and she can’t be blamed for that. Alex doesn’t know much about where Kara came from before she became an adopted Danvers, but she assumes her sister was a child of the sun. No normal person could be so genuine, so bright. No normal person would look at Alex, a complete washout, and see something to believe in.

“I love you, Kara, you know that?” Alex coughs once her laughter has died down.

“I love you too, Alex.” Kara says, confusion still evident in her face.

“I’m just gonna go get ready for work.” Alex says, already backing away as the words are leaving her mouth. When she turns back to the house, she catches the sound of Kara’s near-inaudible sigh and picks up her pace. Work was a better, more solid thing to focus on than any far-fetched dreams. Kara was a fan of holding out hope for the most whimsical fantasies that crossed her mind, but Alex had always been firmly rooted in pragmatism. Dreams allowed you to soar far higher than possible and nearly always led to a fiery, humiliating crash to the ground, one Alex was all too familiar with.

She and Kara don’t speak during or after Alex goes through her morning routine and is stepping outside while buttoning her work shirt closed. Kara just stops sanding and raises her hand in goodbye, her music drowning out any spoken sentiment. Alex waves back before taking an easy jog across their scrubby yard to the car. The abused, torn leather seats are absolutely searing after sitting in direct sunlight for a few hours. Alex braves it though, because she’s got to go to work and there really isn’t much one can do with hot leather besides sit on it until the burning goes away. At the very least, cooking the underside of her legs will take her mind off Pipe Masters.

 

*** 

Hank is wiping down the Tiki Bar when Alex arrives. He looks annoyed, and for a brief moment she has to card through her memory to make sure it wasn’t something that _she_ did. When her aggressively hucks a used lime into the garbage, Alex decides that she might as well meet this head on before their day starts.

“Everything okay, Hank?” She asks as she steps behind the bar. He cuts his eyes to her and then back out to the beach. “Uh, what? I can’t read your mind and I don’t think we’re at a place in our relationship where I can gather information from your eye movement.”

Hank maintains his steel stare down the beach for a minute before he turns to her and says, “It’s your new friends.”

“My friends?” Alex says, indignantly. She has all of two friends and one is her sister and the other is Lucy, who should currently be cooped up in the island Navy base, probably avoiding doing whatever work she did there. Neither of those people would be on this beach. Alex follows Hank’s line of sight down the rows of immaculate, white and red beach umbrellas and tables, struggling to figure out what he was talking about. It takes a full thirty seconds for her to spot the problem.

“Oh, what, those two? I don’t actually know them, Hank.”

“Well, you seemed pretty buddy-buddy with their other friend yesterday. You should know they’ve managed to rack up a two-thousand-dollar tab in the twelve hours you weren’t on shift. I came in this morning and found receipts for it stacked up on the register after the night-shift girl, Susan, went home.”

“ _Two thousand dollars_?” Alex nearly chokes. “How could they possibly do that?”

“They bought alcohol for every single person on the beach. That includes a wedding party.”

“Oh my god.” Alex puts a hand over her mouth. “But they can pay it, right?”

“I wouldn’t know. Apparently, they’ve been passed out on those lounge chairs since 4am.” Hank looks murderous. Alex gets it. It would look bad for all of them if somebody charged a wild amount on tab and then failed to be able to pay for it. Their bosses higher up the hotel hierarchy would not appreciate that in the slightest.

“I need you to go talk to them.” Hank says.

“Why me?”

“Because I might drag their chairs into the ocean and let the tide take them for buying the last bottle of Grey Goose and dumping nearly half of it in the sand.”

“That’s very extreme, Hank.”

“If you were responsible for this bar, you’d feel the same way.” He growls, leaving her to sequester himself in the back room. Alex taps her fingers on the bar. She feels slightly responsible for Maggie’s friends because she was the one to open their tab in the first place, even though she couldn’t have known that they were going to supply booze to half the hotel while she was gone. Reluctantly, Alex decides that she might as well get Hank’s request over with so that she could get back to doing her actual job.

On her way over to their table, Alex goes over potential plans of attack. Nearly of all them consist of the same step: Call them out for racking up the tab. Some versions of that plan were polite, some were definitely not, and Alex had never been known for her tact. She had no desire to chew them out, though. Maybe it was the knowledge that they were _Maggie’s_ friends that kept her from charging at them guns blazing.

The two of them are slung over their chairs, completely unconscious. The man is face down and backwards on his chair with his arms dragging in the sand. There woman is far more demure with her legs tucked up underneath her, her head lolling back, and the bottle of Grey Goose stuffed under her arm. Alex regards them with her hands on her hips.

“Excuse me?” Alex tries, leaning down. “Hello?”

No answer. There is a voice in Alex’s head telling her to do something slightly unprofessional, but she really shouldn’t…..but, yeah, she’s gonna. Alex kicks the man’s chair.

“Holy shit!” He squeaks before twisting off the chair and crumpling in the sand. The women jerks awake at the sound, her eyes darting around until they focus enough to settle on Alex.

“Oh my,” She says, slow smile spreading across her face. “Oh, Winn, ha! Winn, get up.”

The man, Winn, groans in the sand. Alex squints in confusion and straightens up. The woman is laughing full out now, and she’s holding the Grey Goose bottle to her chest like it will put air in her lungs. A family of four is walking down the beach behind them, so Alex does her best to smile and wave them on. The mother shoot a strange look at Alex and the two disasters in front of her and hurries her children past the scene.

“Look,” Alex groans, “I hate to ruin your fun, but you both need to get your shit together.”

“Our shit?” Winn mumbles.

“Yeah, you have to pay your tab.”

“How much is the tab?”

“Two thousand dollars.” Alex states, waiting for the raging indignation that people who rack big tabs always have when they are told they need to pay, because they ‘ _would never do such a thing’_ and so on. But it never comes.

“Hmm, yup, Lena, you’ve got this.” Winn points up at the woman. She continues laughing and waves her hand at him with a nod. Yeah, Alex is confused. This is not the reaction she would have after being presented with a bill of that size. Who are these people?

“Hey! Thing One and Thing Two! What the hell is going on?” Maggie’s voice breaks through Alex’s stunned silence. Alex spins on her heel and catches sight of a shoe-less Maggie stalking towards them. For some reason, she feels like she’s also being reprimanded by Maggie’s tone, even though Alex hadn’t done anything wrong. Maybe she’s just starstruck.

“Maggie, we have this under control.” Lena says.

“Like hell you do.” Maggie scoffs. “Have you been out here all night?”

“Uh, well—“

“You know what, no, don’t answer that.” Maggie sighs. She rubs her knuckles into her temple and closes her eyes. Then, as if she is just noticing her presence, she switches her attention to Alex. “How bad is it?”

“Two thousand.”

“Jesus Christ, did you buy drinks for the entire island?” Winn and Lena don’t even look mildly concerned about Maggie’s reprimand. Although, to be fair, Maggie looks more exasperated than concerned about the tab. “Lena, you’re lucky you are who you are.”

“I’ve been told.” Lena says, dragging a hand over her face. “Don’t worry, Ms…Alex, right?”

“Yeah, it’s Alex. Unfortunately, you’re going to have to settle the tab with my boss, Hank.”

“Fair enough.” The sheer nonchalance of the whole situation is making Alex’s head spin. Never in her life had she—or Kara, for that matter—been this casually unconcerned by having the equivalent of a third of Kara’s semester tuition at the foot of a bar bill.

“Look, I know I just work here and this might be overstepping a boundary, but I am having a hard time understanding how you’re so relaxed about this.” Alex chuckles humorlessly, mentally preparing to explain the inevitable complaint being filed against her to she and Hank’s manager. But, to her surprise, Lena laughs and waves her hand like it will dispel Alex’s worries. To her left, Maggie rolls her eyes.

“She’s not concerned because she’s Lena Luthor, CEO of L-Corp. She donated triple that to charity six days ago.” Maggie explains, like that should have been obvious. Alex nods, distracted in part by the fact that Maggie was speaking directly to her for the first time and in part because she didn’t actually understand the relevance of anything Maggie was saying. Kara tended to keep up with mainland media as a journalism student, but Alex _certainly_ couldn’t say the same. The only things she followed with any kind of consistency were the World Surf rankings and the odd episode of Chopped. And perhaps her lack of knowledge is too obvious, because Maggie narrows her eyes at her and lets a slightly smug smile creep across her face.

“You don’t know who she is, do you?” She throws her thumb towards Lena. Alex shuffles slightly in the sand, trying to tell herself that she shouldn’t feel awkward for not knowing some random millionaire CEO. It’s just, Maggie’s teasing smirk doesn’t really help.

“Uh, well,” Alex rubs her neck, “I don’t exactly know much about mainland stuff. I grew up here and I don’t really leave, ever. There’s not much reason for me to pay attention to what goes on over there, no offense.”

“None taken. Maggie here just finds it funny because she thinks I have a bit of an ‘overconfidence problem’.” Lena pushes herself up from her chair and adjusts the floral wrap around her waist, empty Grey Goose bottle in hand. Brandishing it at Maggie, she says, “And, Ms. Head-of-Security, I’ll have you know that buying drinks for a whole beach is its own form of charity. Don’t be jealous because you went to bed too early to participate.”

“I’m not jealous, I’m hangover free.” Maggie glances down at Winn. “Some of us can’t relate.”

“Can you two stop messing with each other so we can go settle this tab?” Winn groans as he starts the process of heaving himself into a standing position. Lena grabs his arm to help him the last of the way. Once he’s steady, they both set to work brushing sand off of themselves and fixing their bath suits to look somewhat presentable.

“Right,” Lena says, “Ms. Alex, we will go pay our dues and get out of your hair. My apologies for any inconveniences.”

“Oh, well, thank you.” Alex says, feeling slightly relieved with how easy fixing the problem turned out to be. She watches Lena and Winn walk away toward the Tiki Bar and knows she should probably be following them back, you know, so she can do her _job_ , but Maggie has not budged an inch from where she is standing and Alex is too caught in her orbit to move away just yet. So, instead, she shoves her hands in the back pockets of her khakis and rocks on her heels, watching Maggie watch her friends out of the corner of her eye. For some reason, Alex feels completely adrift—flustered, even, from standing next to this woman. She is so caught up in the way her palms are sweating in her pockets that she doesn’t realize that Maggie has started speaking to her.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I asked if you were a real local.” Maggie smiles.

“’A real local’?”

“Yeah, like in the movies. Hanging ten, cliff diving in the most dangerous places, guarding your beaches from outsiders like us?”

Alex snorts before she can stop herself, “Did you just call surfing ‘hanging ten’?”

“Why, is that a stupid mainlander thing to do?” Maggie laughs, her eyes bright. Alex finds herself smiling and staring at the prominent dimples carved into Maggie’s cheeks, wondering if it was normal to want to run her thumbs across them, to feel what it felt like when Maggie laughed.

“It’s not that, no.”

“Well, what is it then?”

“You clearly don’t know much about surfing.”

“I’m grew up in Nebraska. I can’t say there’s a lot of surfing going on there.” Maggie shrugs. “But what about you, Alex? Do you surf?”

Oh. A lot of answers flash through Alex’s mind, all of them grappling with varying levels of truth, like there was a wall of indecision there, taunting her. Did she really surf? Sure, she got out there on her board and rode good waves, but did that make her real? A very small, very mean part of her brain was screaming that, no, she didn’t surf, not truly. How could she claim to be a surfer after getting dragged out of the Pipeline? After hiding out on the sandbar for three years? Maggie tilts her head, waiting for an answer.

“Not really, no.” Alex says, embarrassment enflaming her entire body. In her mind’s eye, she can imagine the look of disappointment Kara would be giving her right now. Suddenly, Alex doesn’t want to be standing next to Maggie anymore. She wants to go back to the Tiki Bar and serve drinks, not have a crisis of identity in front of a stranger.

“Well, do you know of any good beaches? We’re looking to hit a few while we’re here.” Maggie asks, completely oblivious.

“Um, I go to the North Shore, off Ehukai Beach Park.” Alex says offhandedly, not bothering to give a set of real directions. “Look, I have to get back to work…”

“Oh, right!” Maggie lifts her hands in apology. “Go, go. Sorry my friends caused you trouble.”

“It’s no problem.” Alex says, but she’s already striding across the sand so she has no idea if Maggie even hears her. She feels shitty, kind of like she’s backing out of a perfect wave to go splash in the shallows. It doesn’t matter though, what’s done is done. Maggie might not know what a fool Alex just made of herself, but that doesn’t stop the embarrassment from biting into her. When she gets back to the bar, Hank looks decidedly happier, but, if anything, Alex feels worse. She takes over the helm again, so that he can return to the back room, and tries ignore the war going on in her head as to whether she just lied to Maggie, or not.

 

 ***

           

Work dragged through the rest of the day. Maggie, Lena, and Winn didn’t make another appearance, but the day still felt incredibly long and arduous. The ride back to the shack was the same, though seeing Kara was a definite improvement to her day. As soon as she pulled into the driveway, Kara had come flying out of the house and to the shed, calling to Alex to follow her. She had led her back to the shed and danced around a nearly finished board. To see her sister so proud of her own handiwork washed away some of the dark clouds hovering over Alex, since Kara sometimes overthought her various projects, writing, board-shaping, or otherwise.

“It looks great!” Alex says as she runs her hand along the newly-smoothed length. Kara beams and hops a little where she stands. Alex isn’t lying, the board does look very good. All it needs was to be fiberglassed and then laminated a few times. “Are you going to add a design?”

“I think so. I just need to decide what it’s going to be.”

“Well, you’re as good an artist as you are a writer, so whatever you pick will be good, I’m sure.” The gentle slope of the board feels good to trace, it’s familiar and soothing, like rubbing your fingers on a smooth pebble. It’s better than dwelling on her fumble from the morning.

“Actually, Alex, I was going to ask you if you had any ideas for it.” Kara says, palming her glasses.

“Me? You know I’m not the artist in the family.”

“That doesn’t matter. I was thinking that you could decide because…I think you should use this board.”

“I have a board.” Alex frowns.

“An old board, that’s still beaten up from, well, _you know_.” Kara holds Alex’s gaze earnestly. Alex drops her hand from the board and crosses her arms, turning away from Kara to mindlessly rearrange the bottles of resin on the workbench behind her. Most of them are half-filled and slightly sticky, so she decides to organize them from least-sticky to most-sticky.

“My board is fine.”

“Maybe if you made a small change, you could start making other changes.” Kara pushes. “I know it’s not a professional-made board, but Jeremiah taught us both how—“

“I know what Dad did, Kara. He made the best boards on the island, you know that. Don’t doubt the quality of your work just because I don’t—I can’t—“

“Let’s go to the beach.” Kara cuts her off, coming up behind Alex and wrapping both hands firmly around her sister’s arm. Alex allows the contact—leans into it even—because she knows Kara wants the best for her, no matter what. “Let’s end the day on a high note!”

“Are there waves?”

“I can call Lucy and find out.”

“Okay.”

And that is how Alex ends up sloughing out of the ocean literally as the sun is about to dip below the horizon. The call to Lucy had revealed that the previously flat tides had changed and there were decent breaks on their beach. Alex and Kara had rushed out of the house to beat the sun and met Lucy out on the water. Kara was right, spending time with her two best friends did end the day on a high note. Maybe it was the endorphins, but Alex could feel the tension of her day decrease with every stroke through the water. She had opted to wear her wetsuit in case the temperature dropped as it got darker, but she exerted herself so much that by the time they ended their session, struggling up the beach, Alex was sweating in her wetsuit with twitching muscles.

As they splash out of the ocean, the sky behind them shines a brilliant orange streaked with pink and purple, casting she and Kara in golden light as they stumble forward, laughing breathlessly. Lucy is trailing them, hilariously shouting fake abuse at the sun for cutting their session short. Kara nearly trips, she’s laughing so hard.

“How dare you!” Lucy screams at the sky between gasping howls of laughter. “We weren’t done yet!”

“That sun, it’ll—it’ll get you every time!” Kara giggles. Alex’s chest is heaving so bad that she halts in her tracks and lays her board in the sand to scrabble at the zipper of her wetsuit. It’s a hard job with pruned fingers, but eventually she gets the upper hand and tugs it down to her waist, leaving the upper part to hang off of her hips.

“You guys are such idiots.” She coughs.

“Takes one to know one.”

“That just proves my point.” Alex picks her board back up and jogs to put herself in front of the other two, backpedaling so she can see them. “You’re both out of your minds.”

“Kara, I don’t know about you, but I feel hurt.” Lucy pouts. Kara tries and fails to make a proper pout, defaulting to a wide smile when she can’t get her face under control. Alex fights against another fit of laughter. She opens her mouth to tease them some more when she catches sight of a brisk change of demeanor on Lucy’s face. Her red-faced humor is replaced by sharp curiosity as her eyes focus on something over Alex’s shoulder.

“Who are those guys?” She asks. Alex almost dumps herself in the sand trying to turn around midstep. Once she rights herself, she turns and scans the beach. At first it’s just palms, palms, palms, parking lot. Then, her gaze falls on three people walking down the beach, heading in their direction. Alex’s heart stutters, because she _knows_ those people and _why are they here_?

“Shit!” Alex hisses, picking up her pace.

“Alex?” Kara calls. Alex ignores her sister and hoists her board under her arm. If she has to haul ass to make it to the car, she’s going to haul ass. And her plan works—for about thirty seconds. Alex’s hears her name called from down the beach, and not by Lucy or Kara.

“Alex! Hey, Alex!” Alex freezes in place, the car a tantalizing few yards away. Against her own will, she turns to the voice and has to go within herself to accept that the cards are not in her favor today, because Maggie (hotel, morning-embarrassment Maggie) is waving Alex down. Kara and Lucy catch up and flank Alex on either side, clearly interested to know who exactly these people are.

“I can’t be here.” Alex mumbles to Kara. She stares a Maggie, who’s eyes are roving around, taking in the picture before her, and immediately regrets what she said earlier.  If she had just been paying attention to anything other than getting away, she wouldn’t have mentioned their beach by name and this impending award situation would have been completely avoided.

“Nice tip about this beach. It’s beautiful. Though, I will say I didn’t expect to see you here.” Maggie says once they are close enough to talk. “With a surf board in your hand, no less.”

“Hey, Maggie.” Alex prays her voice doesn’t sound nervous. Lena and Winn move to mirror Kara and Lucy, like this is some insane kind of _Westside Story_ face off, when really it’s a meeting of five normal people and one uncomfortably awkward person (Alex) who can’t seem to get a handle on interacting with another woman.

“Uh, hi! I’m Kara, Alex’s sister, and this is our friend Lucy.” Kara steps into the neutral ground and holds out her hand, ever the tension-diffuser. Maggie takes the offered hand with another one of those dimpled smiles.

“Maggie. This is Lena and Winn.” She says, flicking her head to each respectively.

“I’m Lucy.” Lucy adds, waving but making no move to shake hands. She looks slightly suspicious of the situation, and Alex truly can’t blame her. She can barely pinpoint how she feels. Seeing Maggie on their beach is surreal, like she’s more of a real person away from the hotel. She _exists_ , and Alex can barely process that or that fact that it’s kind of her fault that she’s here.

“So, I guess you weren’t exactly straight with me this morning, huh?” Maggie says, cocking her head. Alex nearly has a stroke.

“I, what, s-straight?” She stammers. Kara cuts concerned eyes to Alex while her sister works her mouth up and down in several failed attempts to speak English.

“Yeah, you said you didn’t surf.” Maggie points to the board under Alex’s arm. “I think you might have bent the truth there.”

“You told her you didn’t surf?” Lucy grunts. “Alex, that’s such bullshit.”

“Thanks, Lucy.” Alex hisses. Maggie is still waiting for a response. Rather than stand here in silence, making a continuing fool of herself, Alex scrambles for something to say. “And, Maggie, I’ll be straight with you now, like, _so_ straight. 100% straight.”

“Okay…”

“As you can see, I do surf. I only said I didn’t because…I’m mean, you know how it is….”

“Alex is a really good surfer and she gets embarrassed saying that to people, that’s all.” Kara cuts in to save Alex’s sinking, imploding, deteriorating ship. It’s a relief, too, because there was no telling where that sentence was going and Alex had already dug herself such a deep hole she might as well toss herself into the center of the earth. That is, it’s a relief until Kara adds, “She’s actually a professional.”

Maggie and company take the news with a trio of surprised expressions. Winn looks impressed, Lena looks mildly interested, and Maggie is eyeing Alex with an unreadable emotion sharp in her gaze, a gaze that happens to occasionally trail away from Alex’s eyes and down her body to the point where her wetsuit is hanging. Alex feels herself flush from the attention.

“Wow, we got served drinks by a professional surfer. Hawaii is so cool.” Winn elbows Lena.

“No, not professional.” Alex says, and then redirects her words to her sister. “I’m retired. And I was semi-pro at best, _Kara._ ”

“Semi-pro or whatever, that’s still impressive.” Maggie says.

“Yeah, well, I guess you could say I’m washed up now.”

“You don’t look washed up to me.” Maggie’s eye skate down Alex’s torso again. It’s so blatant that Alex wonders if she’s imagining it—which would be _weird_ , right? She wonders if Kara or Lucy can see what’s going on, because it feels as though there is something in the air, simmering like heat waves on asphalt. It’s hard to describe, but it reminds Alex of when she was young and her dad warned her not to touch the jellyfish that floated near the reefs sometimes, because while they seemed soft and beautiful at first glance, touching them would leave her with a nasty sting. Maggie is clearly no jellyfish, not by a long shot, but something about the way Alex’s heart twitches when she smiles made her wary.

“I just surf to surf.” Alex says quietly, forcing her eyes to look anywhere but at Maggie. She nudges Kara with her shoulder and nods her head towards their car. “C’mon, let go get these tied down.”

“Oh, okay. Nice to meet you all.” Kara gives the trio a small wave. Lucy is quick to follow suit. Unsure whether to offer any form of goodbye, Alex stalls in the sand for a second and then shifts her board so she too can give them a small wave. She doesn’t look to see if any of them wave back as she walks away. Stepping from the sand to the pavement grounds her slightly, and she might have even made it to the car with a shred of dignity had Maggie not piped up behind her.

“Hey, Alex!” She yells. “Do you give lessons? We’ll pay!”

Alex pauses and glances up at Kara, who gives her a questioning look and then an encouraging nod. _You can say yes to this,_ Alex thinks to herself, _it wouldn’t be the end of the world_. She had helped her dad teach Kara when she came to live with them, so it wasn’t like she hadn’t done it before. A ‘yes’ is swinging on the tip of her tongue when the sound of the Pipeline crashing over her slams through her mind. So, she lets her doubt speak instead.

“No. Not really.” Alex doesn’t wait to see Maggie’s reaction to her refusal. She walks to the car, ties up her board, and plops herself in the driver seat. Kara opens the passenger door and sits herself down, followed a second later by Lucy, who takes over the backseat. In silence, they watch Maggie, Lena, and Winn through the rearview mirror. The three talk amongst themselves for a moment, shooting lingering looks at Alex’s car, before they seem to come to some sort of agreement and start walking across the parking lot towards a large black SUV.

“I know I kind of invited myself in here, but, first, Alex, why did you say no and why are we watching them leave?” Lucy mumbles. “Because, no offense, you should take their money.”

“Alex…?” Kara lays a gentle hand on her shoulder. Alex keeps her eyes locked on Maggie until she grabs a set of keys from Winn and disappears into the driver seat of the SUV. Only then does she tear herself away and look down at her hands.

“I don’t know. I panicked.”

“You _panicked_?” Lucy scoffs. “Over what, _money_?”

“No!” The back lights of the SUV flick on and it starts to back out of its parking space. Out of nowhere, Lucy starts slapping her hand on Alex’s seat.

“Alex, turn the car on!”

“What, why?”

“So we can catch them!” Lucy hisses. She slaps Kara’s arm, too. “Kara, help me out here!”

Kara, eyes wide, starts slapping the dashboard to the beat of Lucy’s hand, “Start the car, Alex!”

“What are you doing?”

“I for one am not going to let you screw yourself out of some easy money!” Lucy shouts, jamming herself in between the front seats to grope for the keys. Alex tries to push her back, but to no avail. Kara joins in to and, since she has a better angle, she manages to wrangle the keys out of Alex’s hand and jam them in the ignition. Maggie’s SUV is rolling to the main exit as Alex’s car roars to life and the three women within it wrestle for control.

“Alex!” Kara shouts. She pushes Lucy away so she can grab Alex’s face and yank it around to face her. Shifting brown eyes meet steady blue ones and Kara says, “Do this for yourself. Just do it, Alex.”

“I…” Alex stares at her sister, wondering why Kara is suddenly fighting for this so vehemently. But, she finds that doesn’t really matter. Perhaps some of her sister’s conviction leaks through her palms and into Alex because she starts nodding her head like a crazy woman. “Yeah, okay. I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna do it!”

Alex shakes free of Kara and cranes her head around in search of Maggie’s SUV. For a second, she thinks it had gone in the time Kara and Lucy were goading her, until a flash of taillights turning onto the main road catches her eye. Without thought, Alex throws the stick into reverse. Jamming on the gas, she careens the car backwards, tossing Lucy back against the seats and Kara into the window. As she switches to drive, in the back of her mind she hopes the boards are down tight enough. But, honestly, whatever. Alex sends them screeching out of the parking lot to the sound of Lucy’s maniac laughter and Kara’s nervous chuckling.

The main road doesn’t tend to be busy but, for some reason, there are several cars rolling at a steady pace—none of which are the SUV’s in question. Alex blows by them.

“Alex, whoa!” Kara gasps, palming for her seatbelt. They pass a blue truck, a red sedan, and two cream colored, smaller SUVs in under five seconds, with Alex keeping sharp eyes out for the bright red taillights she’s searching for. The sun hasn’t made it all the way down, so her windshield is caught in the glare of the direct rays shooting over the palms and vegetation on the side of the road. That’s not going to stop her though, because ahead she spots what she’s looking for. Maggie’s SUV is about fifty yards in front of them, driving just above the speed limit. Alex shatters the speed limit. She holds down on the gas even as the suspension starts to shake, gunning it until they are directly behind the SUV.

“Kara, roll your window down.” Alex says. One hand clutching her seatbelt, Kara presses herself back against the seat and rolls the window down. Violent wind whips into the car, drying Alex’s eyes out in an instant. She knows there’s no way to flag them down from behind, so she sends a mental apology to her mother and pushes down on the gas again, drawing the car into the oncoming lane.

“Alex, holy shit!” Lucy crows. Alex guides the car so that it’s level with the SUV. Through the tinted glass, she can see Maggie catch sight of them and do a double take, clearly mouthing the words ‘What the fuck?’. Kara motions for her to roll her window down, which she does, with an expression of complete bewilderment painted across her face.

“Alex, what in the hell are you doing?” She screams over the wind. Lucy pushes her way back into the front, partially blocking Alex’s view.

“How much?” She yells to Maggie.

“’How much’ what?”

“For, shit, Alex—!” Lucy yelps. Alex whips her attention back to the road and sees another car headed straight for them. Heart in her throat, she slams the breaks and drags them behind Maggie’s SUV, just as the oncoming car zips past them, blasting its horn in anger. Their tires keen at the movement, but they stay on the road, so it’s a blessing.

“Go, go, go.” Lucy says, urging Alex on despite their brush with death. “Get back up there.”

“Oh my god.” Kara wheezes. Alex peels out from behind the SUV a second time and surges forward to realign their windows with Maggie—and now Winn and Lena—looking on in disbelief.

“How much for lessons?” Lucy repeats.

“I don’t know, what’s the going rate?” Maggie says with a half-laugh, like she can barely believe this is happening.

“Uh, $20 an hour?” Lucy says with as much of shrug as she can do with her shoulders jammed against the roof of the car. Maggie doesn’t respond at first and Alex starts to realize that they don’t have much time until another car shows up in the oncoming lane. Lucy bids lower, “$15?”

Abruptly, Lena’s head pokes out in front of Maggie, who curses at her and has to right the SUV when it swerves. Lena stretches herself across Maggie’s torso and waves her hand to flag down Alex’s attention.

“The going rate at the hotel is $150.” She calls. “We’ll give you that!”

Giddiness bursts through Alex. She extracts one hand from the wheel and shoves Lucy back so she can reach over Kara and shout, “Our beach, 9am, tomorrow!”

Maggie shakes her head with the wind blustering her hair all over her face. She laughs and pushes Lena back, leaning out the window, looking Alex right in the eye, and saying, “Sounds like a date!”

Alex can barely think. She just nods vigorously and hears Kara yell something like a ‘thank you’ to the others. Alex hasn’t felt this unhinged and excited since she was a kid, so she laughs and drums her hands on the wheel. There aren’t many goodbyes to be had when doing 60 on a two lane road (in the wrong lane no less), so Alex whoops and eases the car back and away, checking to make sure no one is behind them as she pulls onto the side of the road. Maggie and the SUV continue their path. Next to her, Kara lets out a shaky breath.

“That was the craziest thing I’ve ever done.”

“I’ll take my compensation for this good idea in alcohol, please and thank you.” Lucy says from somewhere in the back seat. Alex lets her head fall back and her arms relax and laughs with ragged lungs.

“Yeah, sure.” She grins. “You can have it _after_ we teach these mainlanders how to surf.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmmmm, I wonder what could possibly happen...if Alex...teaches Maggie...to surf. As always, comments are appreciated!


End file.
